Constant pace card game

ABSTRACT

The present invention relates to a method for maintaining a relatively steady pace in a card game and enhancing the drama associated with the game, such as a poker game. The method may be used with virtually any poker game to maintain a relatively constant pace in a poker tournament. In essence, as play passes to a player, the player is given a predetermined time period within which to play the hand before a restriction or penalty is imposed on the player. By limiting the amount of time for a player to play a turn, the pace of card game will be relatively constant. In order to further enhance the interest of the viewing audience in the game, visual effects may optionally be provided to provide an indication to the players, as well as the viewing audience, of the time period.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a system for maintaining a relativelyconstant pace of a card game and enhances the drama of the game, such asa poker game, and optionally provides visual effects which indicate oneor more stages of a card game, such as the expiration of a predeterminedtime for a player to take action.

2. Description of the Prior Art

Card games, such as poker games, have experienced an increasing amountof popularity over the years. Indeed, poker tournaments have become aspectator sport that is normally televised before a live studio audienceand broadcast over one of the television networks at a later date.Unlike other spectator sports, the actions and movement of the playersin a poker game are fairly minor. In order to maintain interest of thestudio audience as well as the interest of the television audience,various exhibition techniques have been used. For example, U.S. Pat. No.5,451,054 relates to a use of a custom poker table configured with aplurality of card viewing windows adjacent to each player station. Thecard viewing windows are built into the playing surface of the pokertable and enable each player to place their cards face down so that theplayers' cards can be displayed to the viewing audience withoutrevealing the cards to the other players.

With a custom poker table as disclosed in the '054 patent, a videocamera is disposed beneath the card viewing window. Unfortunately, whilethe cards are being viewed by the viewing audience, the poker game iscontinuing in the background, out of view of the viewing audience. Thus,even though the player's hand is displayed by way of the card viewingwindow, the viewing audience misses a portion of the poker game whilethe players' cards are being displayed.

In order to solve these problems and to maintain the interest of theviewing audience, improved exhibition techniques have been developed.For example, commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/353,319,filed on Jan. 29, 2003, assigned to the same assignee as the assignee ofthe present invention, discloses a method for exhibiting a card game inwhich graphic and text data are selectively superimposed on video framesof the card game in progress in a relatively unobtrusive manner in orderto inform the viewing audience of each player's hands and each player'sbets while allowing the viewing audience to continue watching the gamein progress.

The amount of time for a poker hand to be played may be limited in somesituations, in order to prevent a player from taking an inordinateamount of time to play a hand and potentially lose the interest of theaudience in the game. For example, poker tournaments are governed byrules of the Tournament Directors' Association (TDA)(www.thepokerforum.com/tda.htm). The TDA is formed from a group of pokerroom managers, tournament directors, and players from around the countrywith an objective to draft a standardized set of rules for pokertournaments around the world. One such rule governs the amount of timefor playing a hand is covered by TDA Rule 4(www.thepokerforum.com/tdarules.htm). This Rule 4 may be used by any ofthe players to limit the amount of time of another player that is takingan inordinate amount of time to play a hand. The rules may be invoked byany player requesting the tournament director to call for a “clockprocedure.” The clock procedure is governed by TDA Rule 4, as set forthbelow.

-   -   “4. Calling for the clock procedures, once a reasonable amount        of time has passed and a clock is called for, a player will be        given one minute to make a decision. If action has not been        taken by the time the minute is over, there will be a 10-second        countdown. If the player has not acted on his hand by the time        the countdown is over, the hand will be dead.”

When a clock procedure is called for, the tournament director then timesthe player's response. If the player has not responded within thespecified time period, the hand is declared dead. In some known pokertournaments, the end of the time period for playing a hand in such asituation was indicated by a buzzer.

Although the clock procedure is available for placing time limits on aplayer who takes an inordinate amount of time to play a hand, such aprocedure is infrequently invoked. Thus, during normal poker play whenthe clock procedure is not invoked, no time limits exist for players toplay their hands. Thus, the pace of the poker tournament may vary,potentially causing at least intermittent decrease in interest in thegame by the viewing audience. Thus, there is a need to maintain arelatively steady pace in poker tournaments in order to maintain arelatively constant interest in the tournament by the viewing audience.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a method for maintaining a relativelysteady pace of a card game and enhancing the drama associated with agame, such as a poker game. The method may be used with virtually anypoker game to maintain a relatively constant pace, for example, in apoker tournament. In essence, as play passes to a player, the player isgiven a predetermined time period within which to play the hand before asubsequent action is taken which could result in the player's hand beingdeclared dead. By limiting the amount of time for a player to play aturn, the pace of card game will be relatively constant. In order tofurther enhance the interest of the viewing audience in the game, visualeffects may optionally be provided to provide an indication to theplayers, as well as the viewing audience, of the time period. Forexample, in one embodiment of the invention, a so-called “shot clock”may be provided. The shot clock may be an analog or digital clock thatis disposed in view of the players, as well as the viewing audience. Assuch, when play passes to a player, the shot clock may be configured tocount down from a predetermined time period, for example, sixty seconds.Additional visual indications may also be provided. For example, at theend of the predetermined time period, various visual lighting effects,such as pulsating studio lighting and/or changing colors of the studiolighting, may be provided to indicate the end of the predetermined timeperiod or intermediate intervals thereof.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

These and other advantages of the present invention will be readilyunderstood with reference to the following specification and attacheddrawing wherein:

FIG. 1 is an exemplary block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of theinvention illustrating the use of a clock and lighting effects used toprovide visual indication of the amount of time that a player has toplay a hand.

FIG. 2A is an exemplary embodiment of a digital shot clock for use withthe present invention.

FIG. 2 is an exemplary embodiment of an analogue shot clock for use withthe present invention.

FIG. 3 is an exemplary embodiment of a control panel for controlling thesystem illustrated in FIG. 1.

FIG. 4 is an exemplary timing diagram illustrating the steady on anddifferent rates of pulsing of the lighting effects in accordance withone aspect of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The present invention relates to a method for maintaining a relativelysteady pace of a card game and enhancing the drama associated with thegame, such as a poker game. Although the following description andattached drawings essentially relate to poker games, it will beappreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the principles ofthe present invention are virtually applicable to virtually any cardgame.

The method for maintaining the pace of the card game is particularlyuseful in poker tournaments with virtually any of the unrecognized orrecognized poker games, such as Texas Hold'em; Omaha Hold'em; Seven-CardStud; Mississippi Seven-Card Stud; Razz (Seven-Card Stud Low);Seven-Card Stud High/Low; Lowball; Straw High; Draw Jacks-or-Better; orNo Limit & Top Limit. The poker rules for each of these games areavailable, for example, at thepokerforum.com(www.thepokerforum.com/pokerrules.htm), hereby incorporated byreference. In any of these poker games, as well as any other card game,in accordance with the present invention, once play passes to a player,the time limit for that player to play a turn is limited by apredetermined time period in order to maintain the pace of the game, aswell as a poker tournament. As such, the level of drama and thereforeinterest of the viewing audience, including live and televisionaudiences, is maintained.

In order to further enhance the interest of the viewing audience in thecard game, visual effects may optionally be provided which provide anindication of the amount of time for a player to play a hand before asubsequent action is taken, which could result in the player's handbeing declared dead. In exemplary embodiments of the invention,different forms of visual effects may be provided to provide anindication to the players, as well as to the viewing audience, of theamount of time a player has to play a hand. In accordance with thepresent invention, individual, or combinations of, visual effects may beprovided.

In one embodiment of the invention, a so-called “shot clock” may beprovided. Exemplary shot clocks are illustrated in FIGS. 2A and 2B andare identified with the reference numerals 20 and 22, respectively. FIG.2A represents a digital clock 20, while FIG. 2B illustrates an analogclock 22. Either of these clocks may be used to provide an indication ofthe time period a player has for playing a hand. As will be discussed inmore detail below, these shot clocks 20, 22 are reset by an operatorevery time play shifts to a new player. As play shifts, the clocks 20,22 may be used to provide an indication of the remaining time availablefor a player to play a hand before or after subsequent action is taken.For example, after a first predetermined time period, a form of penaltyor restriction may be imposed on the player. One form of penalty orrestriction at the expiration of a first predetermined time period isthat the player's hand is declared dead. Another form of penalty orrestriction is that the player is forced to play the hand within asecond time period before being declared dead. Other penalties are alsocontemplated.

A sixty-second time period may be optionally selected as the firstpredetermined time period selected. In this case, a two-digit digitalclock 20 may be used, as illustrated FIG. 2A. The digital clock 20 maybe configured to count up to sixty or down from sixty. Alternatively, ananalog clock 22 may be used as the shot clock. The analog clock 22 maybe provided with a sweep hand 24, which may be configured to sweepeither in a clockwise direction or in a counter-clockwise direction.

Various types of clocks may be used for the shot clocks 20 and 22. Forexample, the shot clocks may be physical hardware clocks or softwareclocks, well within the ordinary skill in the art. Both hardware andsoftware clocks can be used to display the time period to the players,as well as to the viewing audience. In the case of the digital hardwareshot clock 20, a pair of seven segment displays may be used.Alternatively, the digital shot clock 20 may be generated by way of acharacter generator by way of a personal computer and displayed and on adisplay, such as a liquid crystal display. U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,354discloses a remotely controlled digital hardware shot clock, herebyincorporated by reference. U.S. Pat. No. 5,821,914 discloses anapparatus for generating an analog software clock on an LCD. All suchembodiments are considered to be within the broad scope of the presentinvention.

In accordance with another aspect of the invention, lighting effects mayalso be provided to provide indications of when the time period for aplayer taking action has lapsed, as well as of intermediate times beforethe expiration of the time period. An exemplary embodiment of such asystem is illustrated in FIG. 1 and generally identified with thereference numeral 26. The control system 26 may include a personalcomputer 28, for example. The personal computer 28 may be coupled to aDMX controller 30.

The DMX controller 30 is a known device for controlling lightingdevices, for example, the lighting devices 32, utilizing a protocoldeveloped by the Engineering Commission of the United States Institutefor Theater Technology, Inc. (USITT) in 1986. The DMX protocol is usedfor digital control of lighting devices 32. Such DMX controllers areextremely well known in the art and allow up to 512 different lightingdevices to be controlled. The DMX controller 30 may be used to convertserial, parallel or USB data from the personal computer 28 into DMX 512protocol.

As shown in FIG. 1, a serial, parallel or USB connector is connected toan available serial, parallel or USB port on the personal computer 28.The serial, parallel or USB data is coupled to the DMX controller 30 byway of a cable 34. The output of the DMX controller 30 may be coupled toexternal lighting devices 32 by way of a DMX 512 cable 36. As mentionedabove, the DMX controller 30 has 512 channels, which allows up to 512different lighting devices to be digitally controlled.

The DMX controller 30 may be a Whole-Hog PC controller, as manufacturedby High End Systems, Austin, Tex. The DMX controller 30 may be astandalone unit, identified as a Wholehog II unit or a software module,identified as Wholehog PC unit, that can be uploaded into a personalcomputer having a Pentium II 400 MHz or higher processor, a MicrosoftWindows 2000 operating system, and at least 8 Mbytes of hard disk space.The Wholehog software PC module is described in detail in the WholehogPC Handbook, hereby incorporated by reference, available atwww.flyingpig.com. Programming of the Wholehog II controller, whether onthe standalone unit or on the Wholehog PC, is discussed in detail inWholehog II Handbook Version 4.0, Whole Hog II Hog Unit Supplement,Version 3.1, available at www.highend.com, hereby incorporated byreference.

The lighting devices 32 may be as manufactured by Kinoflow, Inc., SunValley, Calif. (www.kinoflow.com). The lighting devices 32 may simply betwenty-four banks of dimmable ballast fluorescent lights. For two-stagecolor effects, both white fluorescent lights and white fluorescentlights covered with a colored gel, for example, a red gel, availablefrom High End Systems, may be utilized.

An operator reset 38 may be provided to enable an operator backstage tocontrol playback of the light effects. The operator reset may simply bea mouse. A mouse may be used to interact with an optional graphical userinterface, for example, the exemplary graphical user interface 40,illustrated in FIG. 3. The graphical user interface 40 may be configuredwith a plurality of exemplary buttons 42-52 for controlling the shotclock 20, 22, as well as a plurality of buttons 54-60 for controllingthe lighting devices 32. A user-programmable dialog box 62 may also beprovided to enable the predetermined time to be programmed by the user.As shown, the dialog box 62 is shown with the number 60 representingsixty seconds. The buttons 42-52 are used to control the clock 20, 22.The SET button 42 may be used to set the time for the system. Inparticular, any time the designated time period in the dialog box 62 ischanged, the SET button 42 is asserted to set the time. The SET 60button may be used to set the time period at sixty seconds. The STARTbutton 48 may be used to start the shot clock 20, 22. A STOP button 50may be used to stop the shot clock 20 and 22. A CLEAR button 52 may beused to clear the timing period of the shot clock to enable a new timeperiod to be set. The RESTART 60 button 46 may be used to restart theshot clock 20 and 22 with a sixty-second time period.

As indicated above, the buttons 54-60 are for lighting control. TheKINOFLOW ON button 54 may be used to turn on the white lights only. TheRED ON button 56 may be used to turn on the red lights. The ALL ONbutton 58 may be used to turn on all of the lights, both red and white,while the ALL OFF button may be used to turn off all of the lights.

As mentioned above, the graphical user interface 40 is merely exemplaryand may be used to facilitate operation of the system. Other controlsmay be used to initiate the lighting effects discussed above, such ashardware and combination hardware/software controls, all within theordinary skill in the art. Also such embodiments are considered to bewithin the broad scope of the present invention.

FIG. 4 illustrates an exemplary method for programming the lightingdevices 32. In particular, a sixty-second time period may be selected.This time period may be broken down into three periods t₁, t₂ and t₃.Time period t₁ may be, for example, thirty seconds. The line 62 may beused to indicate a steady-on condition for the white lights. Thus, asshown, the white lights are on steady for a period of thirty seconds.After thirty seconds, the white lights may be programmed to pulse at afirst rate, indicated by the pulses 64 and 66 for the time period t₂.The white lights may be programmed to pulse, for example, during timeperiod t₂, up to fifty seconds, for example. After time period t₂, thelighting devices 32 may be programmed to pulse at a relatively fasterpulse rate, as indicated by the pulses 68 and 70, until the end of thetime period t₃, which, as shown, is sixty seconds. At the end of sixtyseconds, the system may be programmed to turn the white lights and turnon the red lights for a predetermined time period and then reset to asteady-on position.

In operation, the system 26 (FIG. 1) may be reset by an operator reset,such as a mouse, when the game play transfers to a new player. In theexemplary embodiment illustrated in FIG. 3, the operator may, aftersetting the timing period, for example, to sixty seconds as shown, clickon the RESTART 60 button 46 or the START button 48 after the system hasbeen set for the predetermined time period. At the conclusion of thesixty-second time period, as discussed above, the system may beprogrammed to automatically turn off the white lights and turn on thered lights for a predetermined time period, such as five seconds. Afterthe timing period for the red lights expires, the white lights may beturned back on and remain on until the operator initiates the timingperiod when play transfers to a new player.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the personal computer 28 may also be used tocontrol the shot clock 22, 24. In one exemplary embodiment, the shotclock 20, 22 may be a software-generated soft shot clock which isdisplayed on an LCD. In this embodiment, the personal computer 28 may beprovided with a video card, for example, a Matrox Digi-Suite LE videocard. The video card may be used to drive the LCD to provide asoftware-generated shot clock, as discussed above. The shot clock mayalso be a hardware shot clock, driven by the personal computer 28, andmay consist of, for example, a hardware shot clock, as disclosed in U.S.Pat. No. 5,293,354, hereby incorporated by reference.

Obviously, many modifications and variations of the present invention inlight of the above teachings. Thus, it is to be understood that, withinthe scope of the appended claims, the invention may be practicedotherwise than as specifically described above.

1. A method for controlling the pace of a live card game comprising thesteps of: monitoring the play of a live card game having more than oneplayer; sensing each time when play passes to a player; and imposing arestriction on a player that does not take action within a firstpredetermined time period.
 2. The method as recited in claim 1, furtherincluding the step of providing a shot clock for measuring said firstpredetermined time period.
 3. The method as recited in claim 2, furtherincluding the step of providing visual effects indicative of the end ofsaid first predetermined time period.
 4. The method as recited in claim3, further including the step of providing visual effects ofpredetermined intervals within said first predetermined time period. 5.The method as recited in claim 1, wherein said monitoring step comprisesmonitoring the play of a poker game.
 6. The method as recited in claim1, wherein said restriction is declaring the player's hand dead at theend of said first predetermined time period.
 7. The method as recited inclaim 1, wherein a subsequent time period is initiated and the player'shand is declared dead at the end of the subsequent time period if thehand is not played by the expiration of the first time period.